1. Field of the Invention
This disclosure generally relates to data processing, and more particularly to methods and systems for providing an integrated identifier for accessing differently regulated data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the United States, the use of personal, credit, and financial data of consumers is regulated by at least the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB). For example, under the FCRA, credit data may be used under certain permissible purposes, such as for account review purposes when a consumer already has an established account with a financial institution. In the healthcare field, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) governs the use of patient data. Organizations often need to manage customer or patient data including different types of data governed by different legal requirements, and thus face the challenge of complying with those requirements in the management of differently regulated data. The different legal requirements often lead to the use of parallel and sometimes duplicative data management systems and methods that increase the transfer of private or sensitive data across systems and networks. Besides increasing costs, the increased transfer also leads to increased security risks and exposes those organizations to liability for data privacy breaches.